Travel

June 24, 2016 by Lisa Leave a Comment

Two Tickets to Paradise

Filed Under: Adventure Tagged With: Jamaica, Travel, Vacation

A lot of good stuff is happening around these parts. Michael and I just hit up the Brewhouse Inn & Suites, had our anniversary and are set to help a handful of loved ones celebrate their weddings in the upcoming weeks. To kick off wedding season, we headed all the way to Montego Bay, Jamaica to see our pals Joe and Mara tie the knot. It was, of course, beautiful.

Because I was wrapped up in those good vibes and a little bit teary (I can’t help it), I didn’t take a single snap of the ceremony. What a fool. I did, however, take a handful of shots of all the beautiful scenery and copious selfies of Michael and myself.

We’d never been anywhere tropical before, so we were super stoked to see what Jamaica had in store. Turns out lush mountains, palm trees galore and the clearest water I’ve seen in my life. I think I spent the first hour of the trip saying, “Can you even believe this?” That was only after I kept singing, “I’ve got two tickets to paradise! Pack your bags weleavethedayaftertomorrow!” like a regular Michael Scott. Again, I can’t help it.

The trip was such a wonderful and decadent treat. Staying at an all-inclusive resort was definitely a splurge, but never once reaching for a credit card or keeping track of money was pretty darn convenient. And we can’t say that unlimited rum punch and a swim-up bar hurt either. 😉 It was really the perfect way to spend a wedding weekend with some pals.

October 29, 2015 by Lisa Leave a Comment

Livin’ la Vida NOLA: Spooky Edition

Filed Under: Adventure Tagged With: New Orleans, Spooky Stuff, Travel

I filled you in last week on a bit of my New Orleans trip. Those stops were all great, but I’m going to give you a peek at my favorite parts of my trip: the spooky stuff – just in time for Halloween!

I’m a sucker for ghost stories and history, so going to New Orleans was a dream. A super haunted city with a past? Sign me up! My pals and I decided day one that a ghost tour had to happen. Admittedly, we weren’t all that prepared for our trip, so we chose a tour company at random. We booked a ghost and vampire tour with French Quarter Phantoms, and I LOVED IT. Seriously could not get enough, especially of the vampire stories. I was all I’m not into vampires, thanks but then I heard all about the casquette girls and was hooked.

We heard a handful of spooky tales (some were seriously spine tingling), saw some historic sites, laughed at our guide’s jokes (Ducky knew what was what) and even got to see the LaLaurie mansion. You American Horror Story fans out there already know a little about Delphine LaLaurie, but for those of you who don’t – she was horrible and sadistic and also very charismatic and wealthy. Her former home (also formerly Nicholas Cage’s home) was a real fright fest. I had to get a snap in front of it because I’m terrible that way.

After that tour, let’s just say my interest in all things creepy NOLA was piqued. The next morning we booked a tour of New Orleans’s oldest cemetery: St. Louis No. 1. I’ll be honest, I wanted to explore this city of the dead alone, but it turns out you can’t (as of March this year). So Amanda, Irina and I stuck it out with a tour group and a very dry tour guide (totally should have booked with French Quarter Phantoms instead).

But as dense as the tour was, it was also incredibly fascinating. Despite the information being delivered a la Ben Stein in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, we learned all about the tombs. First off, I learned something very important. The graves aren’t above ground because of the water table or some such nonsense – turns out that type of burial was totally en vogue in Europe at the time these cemeteries were founded.

I’d spare you the details, but I’m into gory stuff on occasion. Turns out that once you inter a body, it takes about a year to slowly cremate in that tomb with the help of chemicals and the scorching heat. When it’s opened up again, the ashes and remains are swept in to a caveau – or a well – beneath the mausoleum. And then I learned that something like 50 or 60 people can all be entombed in one small plot. And that boggled my damn mind. And community tombs could hold over a thousand. WUT?

The main draw for St. Louis No. 1 is that it’s the oldest remaining cemetery in the city. It’s also home of the United States’ second most visited grave (right behind Elvis): Marie Laveau, the former Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. I was expecting something way different from her tomb thanks to American Horror Story: Coven, but it turns out when the characters go to her grave on the show, they’re going somewhere else (St. Louis No. 1 is off limits for Hollywood is what we were told).

What was probably more interesting than Marie Laveau’s spot itself were all the “faux Laveaus” around the cemetery. These fakes are graves that are no longer maintained by caretakers because they are considered abandoned – meaning the space is old or forgotten by family for many years. These sites are heavily vandalized. Essentially the exes are superstition: visitors come in, ask Marie Laveau for a favor, leave a gift, mark the tomb with XXX and spin around three times in hopes that their request is fulfilled. If it is, they come back and leave another gift.

I’m no authority on any of this of course – all this is second hand from very knowledgeable tour guides – but I’m intensely fascinated by this now. I need to know everything about voodoo, ghosts and vampires in this town.

Catch ya on the creepy side!

October 22, 2015 by Lisa Leave a Comment

Livin’ la Vida NOLA

Filed Under: Adventure Tagged With: New Orleans, Travel

When it comes to the Adventure section of this blog, I keep it pretty local. What can I say? I love Wisconsin. But the other 49 need a little love too, which is why I am so happy to share my trip to New Orleans with you.

You see my old pal Amanda got hitched and moved down to Louisiana not too long ago. We go way back – like 1993 way back, like K4 at St. Joe’s School way back. I can’t let something like 1,000 miles interfere with that, so my friend Irina and I packed our bags and met her in the Big Easy.

Let’s just say I loved this place. Architecture, atmosphere, people, strange open container laws (or lack thereof), history, spooky history – need I go on?

My friend Irina and I flew in late Saturday. Getting to our hotel after 8PM, we knew there wasn’t much we could see as far as sights, so we dropped off our bags, grabbed a quick bite and did our due tourist diligence: Bourbon Street. It was a weird place but I can’t say I wasn’t into it. Sure, Bourbon Street is everything I hate about, say, Water Street in Milwaukee or any college bar, but for one night in a new city, I was totally buying into slushy drinks served in commemorative cups and trying to catch beads thrown from tourists’ hotel balconies. It was a fun time for the two hours we were out, but two hours was totally enough.

But Bourbon Street at night is not fun for photos. It is, along with the rest of the French Quarter, fun during the day. Since we only had a couple days, we spent the majority of it poring through the Quarter. We ended up spending a good amount of time around Jackson Square, partially because we kept running into it and partially because it was great. We listened to a jazz band, a guy and his African bass harp and I got a tarot reading which was a total New Orleans must-do for me.

The tarot reading was totally up my alley, although I know most people don’t really buy into it. Take it with a grain of salt, enjoy it and soak up the parts that really speak to you – that’s my philosophy at least. A few things were laughably accurate, so it was totally worth it just to have someone tell me, “when decisions are being made, you want to be involved,” because I do. I can’t help it. And it paid to have someone figuratively shake my shoulders and tell me to take a back seat in matters I can’t control.

One afternoon we ventured outward toward Magazine Street, a place a coworker described as a Third Ward-Brady Street mashup (for you Milwaukee folk). Although the walk was long from our hotel, it was very much worth it. It was full of cute little shops and restaurants – I think we could have spent all day there had we started earlier on a Sunday.

Magazine Street had by far my favorite eats of the whole trip, however I’m no authority because 1) we only spent three nights in NOLA and 2) I hate seafood (I know). All I’m saying is that I had a great roast beef po’ boy and a tasty new beer at Ignatius and I tried French macaroons for the first time at Sucré – until this point they were the stuff of Gossip Girl and blogger lore.

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But our trip wasn’t all macaroons and NOLA Blonde Ale. It was also appropriately spooky. I’ll be back later with some scoops on ghosts, vampires and St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

July 9, 2015 by Lisa Leave a Comment

Door County Days

Filed Under: Adventure Tagged With: Door County, Lighthouses, Travel, Wisconsin

If you grew up in Wisconsin (or Illinois I suppose), chances are you’ve been to Door County. It’s just a vacation staple in these parts, and I spent many a summer in Ephraim sightseeing and eating all the candy I could get my hands on. That being said, I haven’t been up to the peninsula in ages and was starting to miss its maritime charm.

Lucky for me and Michael, my Aunt Debby and close family friend Jean swooped in with just about the best wedding gift a couple of lovebirds could ask for: a honeymoon trip up to Door County. I’m telling you it was just the ticket.

I can’t begin to tell you about the must-see sights and must-eat eats, but I’ll fill you in on a few.

Let’s start with our home base for this whole affair: Sturgeon Bay. Growing up, I only saw Sturgeon Bay as we passed through it, thinking it wasn’t really that Door County compared to the rest of the peninsula. Well, I was a fool because Sturgeon Bay is great.

Our home for the trip was The Foxglove Inn. This place! How can I tell you how great it is? I can’t because its charm is beyond words, truly the stuff of dreams.

This little inn had it all. Beautiful rooms filled with the most opulent but comfortable accommodations, and the most lovely, thoughtful owners. They have the greatest eye for detail and I can’t tell you how much I love that. And did I mention they deliver a beautiful and and totally delicious breakfast every morning? Because they do, and it is to die for.

Michael and I were also fortunate enough to catch the tail end of Steel Bridge Song Fest, a music festival led by the owners of the Holiday Music Motel, which is so cool in its own right. Michael and I stayed their for a short weekend years ago and that place is killer – but that’s another can of worms. We stopped by for a few tunes and loved it.

But enough about Sturgeon Bay and its many charms. Onward and upward into the peninsula! On our full day, Michael and I decided to hike Peninsula State Park – or at least a small part of it. The park is giant and is filled with trails, a lighthouse, lookout points, beaches, a fire tower and so so much more.

Growing up, I had a real thing for lighthouses; I read everything I could about the Great Lakes variety and all the potential ghost stores that went with them. When I met Michael, I found out that he also had an interest in lighthouses (although not with the strange specificity), and we bonded – talk about a love connection. To get to the point, when we came up to Door County, we knew we had to get some lighthouse sightseeing in, and Eagle Bluff (which is inside the park) was the perfect place to start.

There are ten other lighthouses scattered across Door County. We knew we couldn’t fit all of them in (or at least the ones open to the public), so I decided to get the most bang for our buck and drove Michael up to the very tip of the peninsula where I knew we could spot a two from the ferry dock at Gills Rock: Plum Island and Pilot Island Lighthouses.

The one way off in the distance is Pilot Island, and it’s creepy as hell. It used to be called Porte des Morts – yeah that’s right “death’s door.” The passage between the point of the peninsula and Washington Island is known as Death’s Door because it was historically difficult to navigate and was home to many a shipwreck. That’s one thing, but naming a lighthouse and island after death is even creepier to me. I like to imagine this place is haunted. It’s not hard to do with the dead trees and ominous old light out there.

But enough about that for now. I’ll add in a few lighthearted stops. First, a total Door County standard: Wilson’s. This 1950s ice cream parlor scoops cones high and dishes full. I’m not one to bail on my ice cream, but I couldn’t do it, boys and girls. I couldn’t make it to the bottom of my cone for the surprise jelly bean at the bottom. I’m a little embarrassed.

I saved the best stop for last, though. It was pure serendipity that we came across my favorite childhood stop, a shop that was hardly ever open, but when it was – oh when it was! – it was home to all things cat. That’s right, the one and only Kitty Korner.

I won’t lie to you – we spent a good amount on cat toys and catnip here. And that smile is 100 percent sincere.

Travel

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